Sam Stone, widow of Private Gregg, has set off on a 274-mile walk to raise funds for injured soldiers. Kevin Shoesmith reports.
SHE has the same mouth as her father, notes her proud mother.
Baby Grace's tiny white T-shirt, displaying a photograph of her smiling dad in combat uniform, confirms the likeness.
Sam Stone, Britain's youngest war widow, bounces her five-month-old daughter on her knee.
"She definitely has Gregg's mouth," says Sam, whose strength of character belies her 21 years.
Grace giggles, content and happy at the attention, as our camera captures a cuddle between doting mother and daughter.
But one special person is missing from the idyllic scene of family happiness.
Sam's husband and former childhood sweetheart, Gregg, was shot dead on a rescue mission in Afghanistan on June 3 last year.
He was just 20.
A wedding photograph, with the smiling groom in his best Army uniform, sits on a shelf beneath the television set.
Sam, who met Gregg at Hornsea School aged 14, is Britain's youngest war widow to emerge from the conflict, which has so far claimed 444 lives.
"I will have the photographs of me and Gregg ready for her when she starts asking about him," says Sam.
No tears are shed as she sits on a sofa in her parents' front room in Hornsea, discussing her 274-mile walk for charity, which began this weekend.
Sam is dignified, proud, strong and guarded, the latter a response to being thrown into the spotlight.
"I'll probably be thinking that my feet hurt," says Sam after being asked how she will feel when she reaches the front gates of Battlesbury Barracks in Wiltshire, the journey's end.
Sam is being joined on the walk by members of her husband's 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment.
It began at Infantry Training Centre in Catterick, North Yorkshire, where Gregg's short military career began.
Gregg and Sam lived together happily in married Army quarters at the battalion's barracks.
Events of June 3 – the Taliban ambush, jungle terrain, Gregg's mission to rescue a kidnapped Afghan policeman – sit at odds with the image Sam now paints of her fallen hero.
"Gregg and I enjoyed the simple things in life," says Sam.
"We'd enjoy picnics, walking our dogs, being outdoors."
Sam told Gregg she was pregnant shortly before he deployed on his first tour of duty.
"He was so pleased," says Sam. "We both were.
"Gregg would have been a brilliant dad."
The couple discussed baby names before the war 4,500 miles away called.
"We went through lists of baby names, crossing off any if we knew someone with that name at school, as you do," she says, laughing.
Grace, now laying on a mat in the middle of the living room, wriggles and flashes a wide smile.
"He was so proud of being about to become a dad. He would tell everyone at his checkpoint."
Sam intends to carry Grace during the walk, whenever possible.
"I'll have a fair few blisters by the time I finish," she says.
The thought of her husband and the injured soldiers set to benefit from the walk, will carry her, emotionally, every step of the way.
Private Lewis Murphy will be among the members of 6 Platoon, Burma Company, who will be taking part.
He took off his body armour, as the Yorkshire soldiers traded fire with the Taliban, so he could swim, with Gregg on his back, across a river to a rescue helicopter.
"I've met them all before but it will be nice to see them again," says Sam. "Gregg saw them all as brothers. They all lived and fought together. In the Army, you're one big family."
Sam's walk, dubbed Journey Home, aims to raise £5,000 for the Yorkshire Regiment Benevolent Fund.
Grace stretches and the words, beneath her father's photo, printed on her T-shirt, become clear: "For your tomorrow, my daddy gave his today."
